


What You Really Need

by Romany



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, M/M, episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-17
Updated: 2006-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-01 08:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/354556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romany/pseuds/Romany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex calculates future variables. He is not pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Really Need

## What You Really Need

by Romany

[]()

* * *

You don't bother with a salutation since there is nothing dear about you and this will soon be consigned to the fire. 

An odd habit, this, writing to yourself in any manner as if you were someone else that you could bargain or plead with, judge or congratulate. 

It's late and you'd best be to bed, but you had to view the surveillance footage one more time. For there, clearly after you told Clark never to return, he defied you again and did so that very day. All in heroic measure, of course. 

The audio feed is shot to hell and you can't hear what he or that odd woman are saying--and you will fire someone from your surveillance team, surely. 

And good lord, he killed her...By all appearances, yes. And you never thought him capable. 

You don't know whether to shudder or be glad. 

Why waste your time on him? Why, when all you could ever want, ever need, is waiting down the hall for you to slide next to her? Trusting you enough to sleep in your house and beside you? 

All the years it took to get her here, to be ready, open and grasping. Clark's grandest failure and she can't even say his name without spitting. Glorious. 

Just as glorious as the look on his face when you threw him out. No longer welcome. No longer wanted. 

Everything as it should be. 

But then you didn't factor in Oliver Queen. And this surprises you since you had heard that he had moved to Metropolis from Star City, had fully expected him to appear at your ball. 

Robin Hood. How uninspired and pathetic. 

But then his Marian was none other than Lois Lane and you observed him with Martha Kent, smiling and nodding and infuriatingly gracious as ever. 

For a Queen Enterprises - Kent alliance will not do. Will not do at all. 

And how much time? How much time before Oliver's obnoxious roadster is the one parked in the Kent driveway? 

How much time before it's Oliver who's ascending that Jacob's Ladder in a hayloft towards Clark, profiled in the evening light, stars around him? 

And how much time will it be before that laugh, that oh so guileless laugh, is about you rather than for you? 

For you are their common link. They will bond over you. And then Oliver will see what you haven't done, how you hesitated, and he will take. He will smile like the smug, handsome bastard he is and he will take. Oliver will... 

It's a fate Clark deserves. More than you did all those years ago when you walked down to the Excelsior archery range to find Oliver bare-armed and eager to teach. Eager to place his hand over yours and have you pull that string back. Eager for you to miss, to know that your aim could never be as true. To pull you further into those fields and show you what those taut arms could do. 

And so eager to laugh afterwards, his entourage in his wake, as he ambled into lecture hall to sit on the far side, away from you, never once glancing over. Never once. 

Once is once, but then you found yourself down at the range again. In those fields again. 

Oh Lex, get up and pour yourself another scotch, why don't you? 

Pour yourself another scotch before you do something disastrous and stupid. Before you search for your car keys. Before you find yourself barrelling down that dusty road that you could negotiate drunk, blindfolded, and in your sleep. Down that road that you have negotiated so many times. 

For he will be there, you know this. In his hayloft, alone, no doubt wallowing. And good. Yes, good. But then you would say nothing as you defy Zeno's paradox and cross that distance between you. And his mouth would open to you, in surprise if nothing else, as it must. As it must... 

Clark once pulled you from the rushing river of your life and simply let you breathe. Christ, you want to forget that, but you can't. And even now, after all he's done, you want to barrel towards him, but you can't. 

He's the one that pulled away. He's the one. 

And you would undo everything if you did this. In the name of what? Jealousy? Fear? Tools to be used by you, and you will not fall prey to them yourself. You will not allow it. 

And yes, this scotch is much better than any foolish, schoolboy reaction. Much better. 

Much better to consign this to the fire and then to bed where what you really need, what you really want, is waiting. 


End file.
